Pink Panther wrote:The real problem with this is when the celibate state becomes elevated to a status considered as "superior", so that people who fail to or struggle to maintain celibacy ... is a form of failure.
One interesting question to ask is "superior in what?". It hasn't made them more honest ... it hasn't increased their ethics ... they haven't become more educated or develop real skills and professions, so what real benefit does it offer them apart from total control over students? Look at leaders in just about every field in the world, they mostly all manage to fit in having a family too; sport, arts, science, business or industry you name it.
Many of the best minds in the world were all highly sexed.*
If I was allowed a little prejudice, and please criticise me if I am wrong, I'd say just about the only peoples racing to practise "celibacy" in the West were homosexuals, for whom it provided an acceptable cover for their sexuality, and asexuals or damaged individuals, e.g. Catholic Church versus Orthodox Church (where the priest have to marry).
What celibacy does do though is to free up a lot of time which can then be used for proselyting, PR and micromanaging their students. Without a doubt the BK religion would have grown more slowly, and been less focused, if they had had children and been allowed to have relationships.
Reading the history of the Om Mandli, I think what becomes clear is that the BK obsession with an entirely cut-off form celibacy came not from so much 'within the religion' but from criticisms 'outside religion'. If you read the Bhaibund Om Mandli book, it is full of criticisms of Lekhraj Kirpalani's "indecent" and luxurious behaviour with the women, e.g. bathing, lying around and touching the girls. The BKs like to claim they were persecuted *because* of their "purity" but *none* of the criticism are about that. The criticisms are about Lekhraj Kirpalani's over familiar behaviour and it was absolutely the Bhaibund who insisted on the separation of males and females.
That, I would say, is the first point to observe ... their fixation came about due to external influences for the sake of appearances. They claim it makes them, "more spiritual". I suppose from an esoteric point of view, it might also aid them in being more 'spiritualistic'.
I would have to ask too, is it really celibacy or a kind of enforced barrenness? Did they have to ditch affection for spiritual purposes, or was it merely a "body-conscious" Hindu cultural influence? Why anti-hugs and touching, for example? Again, their behaviour did not evolve from within or from their God ... it was determined from external influences or compromises. I would suspect that if one was to know the real history, the rule probably came about because of some "traumatic" event or another, e.g. a male and female falling in love and leaving or having an affair.
Lastly, one has also to frame it in the experiences of Indian women in general for whom one Indian commentator said, "90% of Indian women never experience orgasms".
Traditionally where conjugal rights are basically a form of rape arranged by the parents or society rather than love making, and child bearing ends in a high rate of death for either the child and/or mother ... does sex look particularly attractive? How did the married women speak of sex and relationships in the early days? I don't know but I don't think India really developed the same Romantic tradition the West did either in the old days or the post-60s era.
Is that not just coming about now, e.g. the acceptance of love affairs and "love marriages"?
We've also often questioned here whether they use the form of celibacy they chose as a control mechanism, like so many other of their disciplines, to cut off any other external influences outside of their own pyramidic control ... even when those external influence were better than them.
* (
The BK answer would be that their "best" period was just such individuals personal "mini-Golden Age" and that they were probably only low birth souls with a few lives on earth)